A review by spacestationtrustfund
Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil by Virgil

1.0

[Pictured: David R. Slavitt.]

"As I look back now on work I did nearly twenty years ago," begins David R. Slavitt's preface to the 1990 edition,

I am struck first of all by the brashness of that younger man whose name I still bear. What presumptuousness, to suppose he could play so fast and loose with Virgil, to take such liberties... And yet, as I have read through the two projects [Eclogues and Georgics], which were separately conceived and for which my modus operandi was quite different, not only am I beguiled, but I feel some legitimately connection to texts I have admired and loved then and have come in the years that have passed to love even more. [...] Isaac Singer has said of translation that it is a process that always loses something. [...] With Virgil, though, there is a lot of margin for a translator to rely on. [...] My temptation—which I resisted but may have been wrong to resist: I still feel its pull—was to call this volume The Collected Works of Virgil—Authorized Version.

Yowch. That's quite a bold claim coming from any translator, in fact I'd call it nothing short of incredibly unprofessional, which does not exactly fill me with confidence. That instinctual reaction was right, by the way—this translation, if it even deserves that label, is absolutely terrible. Take a look at what Slavitt did to Vergil's first eclogue, for example:

I. Tityrus

One is about to leave; the other is staying,
and suddenly it matters that there are trees
they know, fields they have farmed.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　They are only
poets dressed up as farmers, or you and I
got up as poets in farmer suits. But departures
are real enough and loss is nothing new.

Meliboeus, or whatever you want to call him,
says what a lousy thing it is to leave,
as metaphorical livestock die and hope
dies on the rocky ground. The other, Tityrus,
talks about Rome, how different things are there,
how life in the country hangs on the city's whim,
and tells of going to Rome to find a god,
a prince, a patron...
　　　　　　　　　It is not so simple as that.
What Tityrus leaves out, what Virgil leaves out of the story
because we know it, because we have been there too,
is how he went to Rome, how he hung around,
stood in the elegant waiting rooms, went to parties
and burned to hear an easily given word,
to see a careless nod, how he sweated it out
until at the end he met someone who knew
a friend of a friend, and—oh, a great piece of luck—
he got to see the man who shafted him.
What else do you think happens to farmers, to poets,
to country boys who haul their tender asses
into a City to save the lives they know?
So back he comes to the farm, reamed like an apple,
figuratively, literally—who cares
when either way it hurts? And he lies there,
in the shade of his beech tree with his shepherd's pipe,
and says he is sorry to see Meliboeus go,
and Meliboeus returns the sympathy
disguised as congratulations: "Your land will be
yours, and you ewes will know their accustomed fodder,
and you will stay here among the rivers you know,
and the bees will swarm the flowers of hedges you know..."
trying to cheer him up. The other one sighs,
talks about exile and says how tough things are,
and tries still to convince himself he's lucky...
　　　　　　Figure it out from the end and the invitation:
"Surely you could stay just one more night,
stay here as my guest, eat apples, chestnuts,
a piece of cheese. See, the chimney-smoke,
and look, over there, the mountains are in shadow..."
And it ends there; Meliboeus doesn't answer,
cannot accept. Being a country boy,
he cannot profit from that city shame
he did not endure himself. Or he will not,
because there is something different about Tityrus.
You don't come back the same way you went to Rome.

　　　　　Sixth formers read it now, sweat out the grammar,
furrow their smooth foreheads to get it right,
but cannot know what we know, you and I,
Tityrus says it all: "Fool that I was,
I used to think the city they call Rome
was like our market town, but bigger."

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　It's not.
A little later on, you can hear him groan,
Dead the Latin dead, his groan is alive,
aloud, along the fields he saved for a while:
"What else could I do? There was nowhere else to go!
There was nobody else to turn to, no other way..."

　　　　　Tityrus, old boy, we know how it is. We know.
And we have seen Meliboeus turn away,
polite, sympathetic, but walking down the road
with the precious little he's salvaged out of his ruin,
into those hills where shadows have started to fall.

Fun. I'm not going to translate the entire poem to compare, because it's over 80 lines long and I'm doing this shit for free, but take a look at the structure of the original Latin text:

Ecloga I. Meliboeus, Tityrus

MELIBOEUS. Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi
silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avena;
nos patriae fines et dulcia linquimus arva:
nos patriam fugimus; tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra
formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.　　5

TITYRUS. O Meliboee, deus nobis haec otia fecit:
namque erit ille mihi semper deus; illius aram
saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.
Ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipsum
ludere, quae vellem, calamo permisit agresti　　10

MELIBOEUS. Non equidem invideo; miror magis: undique totis
usque adeo turbatur agris. En, ipse capellas
protinus aeger ago; hanc etiam vix, Tityre, duco:
hic inter densas corylos modo namque gemellos,
spem gregis, ah, silice in nuda conixa reliquit.　　15
Saepe malum hoc nobis, si mens non laeva fuisset,
de caelo tactas memini praedicere quercus:—
saepe sinistra cava praedixit ab ilice cornix.
Sed tamen, iste deus qui sit, da, Tityre, nobis.

TITYRUS. Urbem, quam dicunt Romam, Meliboee, putavi　　20
stultus ego huic nostrae similem, quo saepe solemus
pastores ovium teneros depellere fetus:
sic canibus catulos similis, sic matribus haedos
noram, sic parvis componere magna solebam:
verum haec tantum alias inter caput extulit urbes,　　25
quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.

MELIBOEUS. Et quae tanta fuit Romam tibi causa videndi?

TITYRUS. Libertas; quae sera, tamen respexit inertem,
candidior postquam tondenti barba cadebat;
respexit tamen, et longo post tempore venit,　　30
postquam nos Amaryllis habet, Galatea reliquit:
namque, fatebor enim, dum me Galatea tenebat,
nec spes libertatis erat, nec cura peculi:
quamvis multa meis exiret victima saeptis,
pinguis et ingratae premeretur caseus urbi,　　35
non umquam gravis aere domum mihi dextra redibat.

MELIBOEUS. Mirabar, quid maesta deos, Amarylli, vocares,
cui pendere sua patereris in arbore poma:
Tityrus hinc aberat. Ipsae te, Tityre, pinus,
ipsi te fontes, ipsa haec arbusta vocabant.　　40

TITYRUS. Quid facerem? Neque servitio me exire licebat,
nec tam praesentis alibi cognoscere divos.
hic illum vidi iuvenem, Meliboee, quot annis
bis senos cui nostra dies altaria fumant;
hic mihi responsum primus dedit ille petenti:　　45
“pascite, ut ante, boves, pueri, submittite tauros.”

MELIBOEUS. Fortunate senex, ergo tua rura manebunt,
et tibi magna satis, quamvis lapis omnia nudus
limosoque palus obducat pascua iunco!
Non insueta gravis temptabunt pabula fetas,　　50
nec mala vicini pecoris contagia laedent.
Fortunate senex, hic, inter flumina nota
et fontis sacros, frigus captabis opacum!
hinc tibi, quae semper, vicino ab limite, saepes
Hyblaeis apibus florem depasta salicti　　55
saepe levi somnum suadebit inire susurro;
hinc alta sub rupe canet frondator ad auras;
nec tamen interea raucae, tua cura, palumbes,
nec gemere aëria cessabit turtur ab ulmo.

TITYRUS. Ante leves ergo pascentur in aequore cervi,　　60
et freta destituent nudos in litore pisces,
ante pererratis amborum finibus exsul
aut Ararim Parthus bibet, aut Germania Tigrim,
quam nostro illius labatur pectore voltus.

MELIBOEUS. At nos hinc alii sitientis ibimus Afros,　　65
pars Scythiam et rapidum Cretae veniemus Oaxen,
et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.
En umquam patrios longo post tempore finis,
pauperis et tuguri congestum caespite culmen,
post aliquot mea regna videns mirabor aristas?　　70
Impius haec tam culta novalia miles habebit,
barbarus has segetes? En, quo discordia civis
produxit miseros! His nos consevimus agros!
Insere nunc, Meliboee, piros, pone ordine vitis.
Ite meae, felix quondam pecus, ite capellae.　　75
Non ego vos posthac, viridi proiectus in antro,
dumosa pendere procul de rupe videbo;
carmina nulla canam; non, me pascente, capellae,
florentem cytisum et salices carpetis amaras.

TITYRUS. Hic tamen hanc mecum poteras requiescere noctem　　80
fronde super viridi: sunt nobis mitia poma,
castaneae molles, et pressi copia lactis;
et iam summa procul villarum culmina fumant,
maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae.

Did you notice it? Did you spot the difference? It's subtle, I know. It's pretty easy to miss.

Slavitt's isn't a translation. It's barely even poetry. The original version of this translation was published in the 1970s, and reads exactly like some middle-aged professor wrote it in the 1970s in order to convince kids that Vergil is actually cool. It reads exactly like someone trying to convince a bunch of teens that they're hip to the jive, or whatever it is the kids say these days, by adding a copious garnish of pop-culture references that were out-of-date by the time the book was even published. Perhaps the most unsettling aspect is the cavalier way in which Slavitt boasts of this time capsule he's made of the Eclogues and Georgics.

If you'll allow me to get up on my soapbox for a moment: I had to translate Vergil at length when I was studying Latin; there were all sorts of different people in my class, and I can say with confidence that if your students aren't interested in reading Vergil, then it's not Vergil that needs to be changed—it's the style of teaching. The primary reason works by poets such as Vergil are still being read so widely, even in translation, several millennia later is (forgive the pretentiousness for a moment, thank you) because Vergil wrote about immediately recognisable emotions and situations. The same is true all the other classical Roman poets: Catullus, Martial, Juvenal, Ovid, Lucan, Lucretius, Petronius, etc., are read because they're relatable, whether that's in the context of complaining to your best friend about a neighbour who snores (Cicero IV.III) or joking about a busty woman having to pay extra to get in the bathhouse (Martial II.LII) or daydreaming about giving your boyfriend endless kisses (Catullus XLVIII). Anyway, stepping off the soapbox: Slavitt's translation sucks, goodbye.